Sound & Vision HT System
Published by: Sound & Vision
Date of Issue: April 2007
Reviewer: Michael Trei
"Rather than dazzling you through a juiced-up first impression, these slightly understated yet highly capable PSBs are the kind of speakers that tend to grow on you over the long haul. They are equally impressive with music and movies..."
We Americans have a tendency to think of Canada as being much like the USA, just with lots of extra snow and a tendency for people to to put "eh?" at the end of every sentence. But scratch a little deeper and you'll soon discover significant differences in how our two countries view the role of government, which in turn affects how small companies tend to do business — even small speaker companies.
Way back in 1974, Canada wanted to encourage the development of a homegrown audio industry, so its National Research Council created a cutting-edge audio testing facility and invited manufacturers to come develop new products there. One of the first to knock on the door was Paul Barton, founder of a fledgling speaker company called PSB. Using its anechoic chamber and optimized listening room, he found the NRC to be the perfect place for blending a solid academic approach with a more subjective design process using listening panels and double-blind testing. PSB hasn't looked back since and continues to develop new products at the facility to this day.
The latest speakers to spring from this well-tuned design machine are replacements for PSB's long-running Stratus family, dubbed the G-Design series. More than just a facelift, the G-Designs were developed to give PSB a speaker line that would meet the European Union's tough new Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) environmental directive while also delivering both sonic and styling upgrades over the older speakers.
The PSB G-Design home theater speaker system reviewed here includes the entire introductory G-Design lineup of three ported models: the GT1, a two-and-a-half-way, three-driver, floor-standing tower; the GB1 two-way bookshelf speaker, and the GC1 center speaker. They come in one flavor only: a luscious, deep, hand-rubbed piano-black paint, which is set off nicely by the light gray woven woofer cones. Every side of the speaker gets this glossy paint treatment, so even without grilles, the look remains elegant and tech-like (although grilles are provided for those who prefer a more subtle appearance).
o check out the full range, I put together a 5.1 surround package using GT1s for the main left and right, a pair of GB1s for surround-channel duties, and a GC1 center speaker. Rounding out the system was a SubSeries 6i, which, though not technically part of the G-Design line, does provide a good complementary subwoofer solution. This beefy 12-incher rejects the recent trend toward mini-subs, going instead for the more traditional approach of a big driver in an even bigger box for smooth, low-distortion bottom-octave performance. The built-in 225-watt Class H amp (350 watts peak) includes both line and speaker level inputs and a crossover that can be bypassed for use in a home theater rig with bass management built into its preamp/processor or receiver.
SETUP All the speakers feature nice gold-plated binding posts, including a provision for biwiring on the GT1 and GB1. The floor-standing GT1s come with both spikes and adjustable rubber feet; these can be used in combination with supplied plastic extenders to provide additional stability. After experimentation, they ended up in my usual spots: about 2 feet from the front wall and 3 feet from the sides, with a very slight toe-in that helped focus the sound. I sat the center channel on an open stand below my TV screen, while the surround speakers were placed for optimal reproduction of multichannel music, on widely spaced 24-inch stands set to the sides and slightly behind the listening position. The subwoofer, meanwhile, sounded best from my stock position on the front wall, slightly right of the left front tower. I used my receiver's internal crossover, settling on 60 Hz to mate the sub with the bookshelf surrounds and, because my receiver allows it, a slightly higher 80 Hz for the center. The towers ran full range.
MUSIC PERFORMANCE After putting the system through my sonic workout program for a few days to break it in, I pulled the GT1s into my two-channel music room to see how they would perform in good old-fashioned stereo. When I cued up Jonny Lang's Lie to Me, it soon became clear that PSB has carefully avoided the common trap of delivering a slightly hyped-up sound that impresses at first, only to become tiring and irritating down the road. Early on I noticed how clear and unmuddled the mid and upper bass were, an effect achieved by not trying to push the speaker's bottom-end extension too far. The overall balance was clean and warm, giving me a transparent sonic window onto the recording. The top end did have just a hint of a wispy character on sibilant and fricative vocal sounds, but it was more than offset by the exceptional transparency and lack of distortion.
With appropriate recordings, the GT1s could summon up a wide and deep soundstage, and image focus remained impressive even when I was seated somewhat away from the center position. When I played Tom Waits' Bone Machine, the stage became so huge that it was hard to believe I was still listening to a two-channel rig. The super-deep reggae bass line on the Keith Richards track "Words of Wonder" was taut and defined, although the GT1s couldn't quite summon up the air-moving abilities of some (admittedly larger) speakers.
Satisfied that the GT1 could more than hold its own in a high-rez two-channel setting, I moved back into my home theater room to see how they would work in concert with their siblings. Starting with a 5.1-channel SACD of the Budapest Festival Orchestra playing Dvorák's Slavonic Dance No. 2, I found the warmth and purity of the string sound startling, while the new DualDisc surround mix of the Talking Heads track "Papa Legba" had the sound twirling around the room in a cohesive envelope with no obvious gaps or timbre mismatch.
MOVIE PERFORMANCE With sensitivities in the mid to upper 80 dB range, the G-Designs are fairly simple and reasonably efficient loads, and I had no trouble powering them with either a 65-watt-per-channel Outlaw receiver or a hunkier 140-watt-per-channel Parasound multichannel amp. Maintaining a good timbral match among the five speakers is particularly important with movies, where sounds often pan and zoom between speakers, and here again the G-Designs — with their matching drivers and careful voicing — sounded impressively similar. Like many people, I usually prefer direct-radiating surrounds like these for music and dipoles for movie-watching, but the GB1s (repositioned about 2 feet higher than the placement I use for music) performed well and never called undue attention to themselves. The absence of midbass muddling I noted earlier also bore fruit here in the system's's dialogue clarity. This was one rig where I was never tempted to goose up the center channel just to hear what the actors were saying.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest contains astonishingly deep bass rumblings in some parts, and the SubSeries 6i was able to shake the floor effectively without a hint of distress. Overall, some setups may be able to pin your ears back with their explosive dynamics a tad more convincingly than this PSB G-Design home theater speaker system, but I found its somewhat more reserved nature made it easy and comfortable to listen to even when the volume was cranked way up.
BOTTOM LINE Rather than dazzling you through a juiced-up first impression, these slightly understated yet highly capable PSBs are the kind of speakers that tend to grow on you over the long haul. They are equally impressive with music and movies, and what minor weaknesses they have are primarily sins of omission that are pretty easy to live with. Come to think of it, that's a bit like the Canadians themselves, eh?